


Unnamed Stars

by lightningwaltz



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Flirting, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 12:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7640371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lando, Luke, and four different quiet moments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unnamed Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SidleyParkHermit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SidleyParkHermit/gifts).



> My wonderful recipient asked for Lando/Luke (and I was amused at the mention of Lando/Luke ESB gifsets making you see the light, because I also had that experience.) 
> 
> I was very inspired by this line in your letter: "Personally when I think of Lando, I think of politics." It's also the case for me. Rewatching ESB, you really get the sense that Lando is a leader, and one who cares about Bespin deeply. Lando and Luke's lives also intersect after their status quo gets majorly interrupted; we get Luke learning about the identity of his father, and Lando having to retreat from Bespin for a time. I wish I could have taken this story into the timeline between RotJ and TFA but the muse ended up landing pretty hard on missing scenes with them in ESB and RotJ. Looking at their personalities and struggles at the time, I just found it really believable that they would end up connecting and drawing comfort from one another. I did try to incorporate their future plans into this because I think Lando is always thinking two steps ahead, while Luke has to find a way to learn to live with what he knows and what he wants to do with it.
> 
> Thanks for such a great prompt. I greatly enjoyed writing for you.

Whenever he observes the reconstruction of Luke’s hand, Lando’s thoughts cycle back to Bespin. His planet exists thanks to a careful marriage of engineering, financial support, and planetary energy. Most of its citizens don’t think too much about this because Cloud City has been designed to appear effortless. Lando knows about it all, though. He has had to be there to oversee every manufacturing failure, gas leak, or breathable air malfunction. He knows all of its vulnerabilities. He knows that it’s an infinitely delicate system. 

Probably that’s why he takes such avid interest in Luke’s mechanical hand. It’s not as easy as snapping on a fully functioning, artificial limb. Just like the creation of a planet, it starts with the creation of a framework. A latticework of durable materials for a planet. A latticework of artificial bones for Luke. Starting from the center and working out, until it’s hard to picture everything that lies beneath.

Today the medical droid is winding nerves around Luke’s new fingers and palm. And Lando thinks about things like Bespin’s electricity. All those wires largely hidden from the public view. But, oh boy, does he hear about it when such things stop working. 

It’s a long process, and Luke seems to separate his mind from the things happening to his body. He also seems less interested in apologies, and more interested in plans. So Lando comes here every day and learns as much as he can about Tatooine. The more he knows, the better he can prepare for the rescue of Han.

“You know,” Lando says, “I hoped it would be as simple as you saying ‘hey, this is where Jabba’s palace is located. Go.’”

That might be a hint of a smile on Luke’s face. Maybe. 

“You can find Jabba easily. Most people just go out of their way to _avoid_ him.” 

“Oh sure. You can find him easily _if_ you can avoid landing in a sand storm, get around the Tusken clans, not have your stuff taken by Jawas, buy a speeder that actually works, not aggravate any of the more territorial moisture farmers… Am I missing anything, or did I get it all?” 

“All of that is meaningless if you die of thirst within a few hours.” Luke looks like he wants to shrug, but then he winces. Lando knows he’s on all kinds of medicines to mask the pain, but phantom twinges must still exist. 

“Ah, yes, how could I forget?”

“Keep that in mind unless you want to fall into coma at Jabba’s door and get fed to one of his pets.” They’re definitely joking now. That’s good. Luke’s smile is more pronounced. There’s a poisonous edge to it, though, and that makes Lando worry (although he’s been concerned about this guy since they rescued him.)

_Why did the Empire want Luke so badly?_

This whole catastrophe had been engineered to get Luke and that puzzle has been needling Lando for a while. Pretty much ever since Vader had stomped on in, and made his demands. True, Luke had been the one to destroy the Death Star. As a pilot, Lando can appreciate (and sense) the focus and determination required for that accomplishment. He can see how that would make Luke a threat.

But, in his incarnation as a politician, Lando has become very familiar with the Empire’s gambits. They usually put this kind of effort into eliminating politicians and high ranking generals. Not the soldiers that tended to fight and die for such people. Something made Luke unique, but it was like trying to sketch out the exact shape of a cloud. The more Lando looks at it, the more it shifts and gets away from him.

Lando leans in, somewhat wishing he was still wearing one of his more ceremonial outfits. He’d forgotten how chilly spaceships could be. He's not surprised by his homesickness. Bespin might be a mirage of a city; a land of platforms and no firm foundation. All its people have fled for the meantime, taking refuge in distant moons, distant planets. It's a ghost planet, for now, and it's probably deafening in its silence.

However, is still a a fixed point. It's still a home. 

“Luke,” Lando asks, trying to focus, “are you worried that Jabba will kill Han?” That’s been one of his main revelations from their discussions. Tatooine is dangerous.

_But Luke survived it._

That’s another realization, and Lando turns it over and over in his mind. Somehow, it helps explain how Luke had endured out there in Bespin’s atmosphere; handless, bloodied, devastated by something he won’t discuss. Luke had clung to life on that wire, down in the inelegant guts of Bespin. The parts that no one ever sees. He’d survived because he’d survived the elements before.

“I don’t think Jabba will kill Han, no.” Luke sounds weary, but certain. 

“Is that what the Force tells you?”

The words feel ungainly on Lando's tongue, even if he has to ask. A Jedi? Right in front of him? Go figure. Han had always seen the Force as something out of unreliable folk tales, while Lando hadn’t paid it much thought one way or another. But he’s seen it demonstrated by Darth Vader, and it’s a fact of his life now. It’s like encountering an extinct species and not knowing whether it will consume you or leave you alone. 

Neither thing seems like an option here. Luke doesn’t look anything like how the Jedi were described. No swirling robes, no reserved demeanor. Just ragged nerves, and hints of pain. 

“Jabba is like any other petty criminal.” Luke meets Lando’s eyes. “He doesn’t just want to harm Han, he wants to boast about everything. Killing him doesn’t serve his purpose, but putting Han on display does.” 

Lando ponders this. “You know you didn’t answer my question?”

“Do I know because of the Force? I know because of observation, that’s for sure.” Luke can be effervescent and energetic, but also so hard to crack despite all his noise. Just like Leia. They both project so much outward, but sometimes it’s like a reflection rather than anything else. “So is that the Force?" Luke is still talking. "I have no idea. The more I learn about it, the less I understand.”

“The less you understand… The Force?”

“The Force, sure. Also life and people. The whole galaxy, probably.” Luke sounds so old and so young all at once. 

Lando lets out a nearly soundless whistle. “Well, that’s pretty ambitious to expect. Has anyone told you that you give yourself a pretty hard time?” 

Luke’s looking down at his hand. The new nerves spooling out from the droid, like the finest ribbon. Lando knows they feel nothing, currently. They’re waiting for the spark that will make them come to life. Sensation springing from the ether, the way Bespin’s electrical circuits power a society.

“You seem hard on yourself, too, Lando.” 

“Well, I _am_ sorry.” Another truth. He doesn’t like to sleep these days, because his mind conjures up the worst scenario for Han. Encased in carbon, fully aware, unable to move, alive until Jabba’s whims take over. He knows its scientifically unlikely, but the thought is like an untreated infection. It settles in, spreads, takes over his life. 

“We _need_ to rescue him,” Luke says, fiddling with the edges of his blanket. “But I understand why you did what you did. I rushed over here because I sensed my friends were in danger. And they… they preyed on your loyalties too, Lando. You had to take care of a whole city.” 

Well damn.

It might be easier if Luke had yelled or clearly wanted to punch him if it weren’t for a missing limb. It’s hard to put this reaction into any sort of framework. He’s seen cruelty in smuggling, and cruelty in politics. The latter is considered illegitimate, while the latter is often propped up by pageantry. Compassion, meanwhile, is still so strange to him. Nothing compels it or demands it, least of all in this case. 

“So, this is what being a Jedi is all about, huh?” He says, a little quiet. 

Luke’s face goes very still, like it’s a protective mask. Lando relates to it much more than he should. “I’m not a Jedi yet, Lando. I don’t have a right to that title.” 

_What happened to you?_

Lando reaches for Luke’s uninjured hand, giving it a slight squeeze. Skin, muscles, and bone. Another thought-provoking framework. 

“This isn’t the end,” he says, stumbling through words and trying to make things look inevitable. He’s comforted when Luke’s grip tightens against his. “Everything that happened a few days ago… It won’t always be like this. Even if it seems that way right now.” 

Luke looks at their conjoined hands, and his smile is a little more genuine. “It won’t stay the same, but it might get worse.” 

“Yes, it might. But you can’t know that yet.” 

“There are dangers to knowing things, and _not_ knowing things.” Luke lets his eyes fall shut, and his head lean back. “But… thank you.” 

Luke doesn’t let go of Lando’s hand for a long time. 

*

As they fly away from Tatooine (Han in tow, thankfully) Luke knows he will never return to this place. He waits for elation or sorrow, but all his nerves seem to hum discordantly. He’s like a bell that’s still emitting frequencies long after its tune has faded out. A blaster still burning from the attack. He’d strolled into Jabba’s palace austere with purpose and intent. A vessel of blood and flesh meant to carry out bigger plans. Maybe this is what it means to be a servant to the Force. There’s the sense that the universe was working its will through him, but Luke, as an entity, is immaterial. Fate flows through other people, too. He could act, he could hold himself aloof, and events will flow on. _Life_ will flow on, transmuting into death. 

It’s a kind of self-abnegation that makes him into a fixed point. The galaxy’s center of gravity. Selfishness in disguise as selflessness. Perhaps Vader thinks like this, and it’s Luke’s legacy. 

During all this time, he’s trained and he’s studied, and he's thoroughly avoided Yoda. The things that still haunt him don’t have answers that can’t be found within. 

“That’s an interesting bruise on your face.” 

If anyone else approached him like this, Luke would resist the urge to brush them off. In moments like this, his thoughts threaten to choke him, but they’re also as thin as the strands of a web. He grieves whenever they collapse on him.

This time it doesn’t seem like an intrusion, though. Charm trails Lando, nearly as tangible as those capes he once favored. There's also something Luke can’t quite name. Something that seems to ground Luke as it washes over him.

“Oh yeah?” Luke vaguely looks for a mirror or a reflective surface. “Does it need treatment, or…?” 

Lando holds onto Luke’s chin, turns his head a little, and frowns. It’s surprising, but only because it reminds Luke how long he’s been touched in a friendly sort of way. Sure, he’s been tossed around and punched, but this is wholly different. Lando’s fingers are a comfort.

“It might not be a bad idea.”

So Lando goes and fetches one of the health kits. He breaks out some disinfectant, but Luke hardly notices the sting. He’s far too taken but the way Lando’s charisma surrounds him, energizing everything nearby, stabilizing the very air. Luke still remembers how hard it had been to breathe in Bespin’s atmosphere. It had been like trying to absorb acid-soaked icicles into his lungs. And he remembers being carried into the falcon, and the euphoria of being able to inhale properly. Then he’d become aware of the arms around him, and how they'd meant no harm. 

It’s a little like that now. On a smaller scale, yes, but this is nice too. Lesser stakes, but nerve-wracking in its intimacy. There’s no need for Lando to be taking care of Luke like this. This kind of thing could be easily self-administered. Likewise, there’s no reason for Luke to sit here and let it happen. Except he finds that he wants it to be like this.

There have been moments like this ever since reuniting with Lando. Mostly through words. Deceptively simple small talk that gets Luke to reveal how he’s doing. Casual banter that gets Luke to relax. He wonders if Lando feels responsible for Luke in some way. Of course, if someone drops into your arms, missing a limb, stiff with shock… You probably remember and wonder about that person forever. 

And if you’re the person who toppled from the sky, you definitely remember the person that broke your fall. 

All he knows for sure is that he’s very aware of Lando in a way that’s difficult to quantify. The worst and most enlightening time in his life happened in Bespin. And he will never forget the relief of letting go of that ice cold wire. Submitting to fate, falling down and down into the grip of an unfamiliar person. 

_Yeah, I got you. You’re safe now._

Had Lando said that? Luke’s memory tells him that he did, but the Force is like an opened vein in his soul. He’s absorbing the galaxy, lately, and sometimes he wonders if others’ memories are weaving into his own. 

“Alright, that’s that.” Lando’s hand should, by all accounts, leave Luke’s face now. Instead, they look at each other, and that hand slides to cup the back of Luke’s head. He likes it at once even though he hadn’t really been looking for something like this. Let alone expecting it. 

It also reminds him how he’s a novice in things like flirting. It doesn’t feel like being a novice in the Jedi arts, though. Universes don’t live and die based on any decision here, even if fate may be nudging them together. Otherwise, it’s just two people simply liking each other and wanting to learn more about each other. 

Maybe things really could be that uncomplicated. 

“Yeah, you’ve saved me from dying again.” Luke hasn’t joked much in recent weeks, but he tries, and his effort is rewarded with Lando’s big smile. “Now I’m on to Dagobah.” 

The smile falters. Just a tiny amount. Somehow that makes Luke more assured than ever. 

“Isn’t that one of those planets with nothing on it?”

Luke is about to say there’s one person on it. But then he remembers the stifling humidity. Fog steaming up from caves. Vines that seemed to choke the trees. Shimmering insects skipping across water. Now, far from that place, he suddenly appreciates the way all these things interweave into a coherent whole. There’s no place like Dagobah. In fact, no two planets are exactly the same.

Just like how no two people are the same. And there’s definitely no one like Lando. 

“Dagobah is very alive, actually.”

“How long will you be gone?” Lando asks, his thumb moving through Luke’s hair.

“I don’t know.” He has questions he wants to ask, but he’s not sure he wants answered.

“Then I should probably do this now.”

Lando leans in slowly, giving Luke enough time to move. He doesn’t. When their lips meet, Lando wants to sigh from relief. 

He still can’t bring himself to share what he learned, how his reality had been askew ever since Bespin. Yoda and Vader alone have the answers. He's been side-stepping them both, going into deeper journeys within the Force. 

But, for now, there’s this. Folding his arms around Lando and holding on tight. He’s warm with pleasure, illuminated from the sense of companionship. It almost punctures all his questions until he’s free of them. He almost dodges his attachment to the past. He kisses Lando even harder, and in this small orbit of desire and appreciation, he almost feels like he can leave it all behind. 

Almost. 

*

What do you do after toppling an emperor? 

It doesn’t mean toppling an _empire._ That’s for sure.

For one thing, celebrations can’t continue indefinitely. Bonfires become embers, and cheering gives way to hoarse, sleepy whispering. The following day, Lando watches footage from a distant planet over and over again; a huge statue of the Emperor being pulled down, crashing to the ground, scattering shards of stone everywhere. No doubt it felt good in the moment, and Lando can hardly begrudge them. And yet, he thinks about how someone will need to clean out all the pieces eventually. Will they be incinerated? Repurposed in some way? Will they be melted down and fashioned into a new statue? New monuments to new heroes?

The rebels have left Endor’s atmosphere already. It’s a rush to Coruscant, a rush to seal their victory. Lando understands this, because there’s nothing deadlier than a vacuum. It’s deadly in space, and probably deadlier in politics. He understands the grins, the excitement, the desire to revel in triumph. He’d been the same just the previous night, in the immediate euphoria of victory. 

But that had been a single moment. Now they were heading into a battle of a different kind. He wonders if any of the young soldiers realize that. 

Lando and Luke have been assigned a room during this journey. It’s a small area. More of a closet with cots than anything else. They both grumble about not getting to travel on the Falcon, and then they fall silent.

Luke is reticent, and it gives time for Lando to ponder various things. He doesn’t know if its on purpose, but Luke has fashioned together quite a narrative for himself; his choice of clothing, his cadence of speech, the way he garbs himself in faded memories of the Jedi. Very few people are familiar with Luke; not him as a person, not with his backwater planet. They definitely haven’t seen Luke maimed, and shivering, and lost. 

Thus, Luke has emerged onto the scene in recent months as a fully formed entity. A near mythical hero. A Jedi who has saved the galaxy several times, now. If they survive, the galaxy is Luke's for the taking. Sometimes the implications make Lando shiver. 

When Lando had seen Luke stride into Jabba’s palace, it was easy to imagine that he’d slipped away from the burdens and foibles of ordinary people. It made it easy to put faith in him, and it was even easier to think _ah, yes, the Jedi have returned._

But then he’d seen an ordinary cut on Luke’s face. They’d laughed, and complained, and then they’d kissed. And Lando had realized they had some things in common. They both could wear many different faces, all of them real. They were haunted by things that changed in Cloud City.

“You keep watching that clip,” Luke says. Just outside their door, they can hear scuffling and laughter that sounds like celebrating. “You must be happy.” 

It would be easy to say something to confirm. Sure, he’s wonderful. Sure, this is the best day of his life. Sure. 

“Well, yes. Last night was a brief break from all the worrying. That was pretty nice.” 

Luke turns on his side, and props up his head with hand. “That sounds like you’re implying you’re worrying again.”

Lando sets his viewer to the side and also turns to face Luke more fully. “Empires aren’t like people You don’t just chop off the head and it dies.”

Lando’s been building up to that short rant for a while, and doesn’t know how anyone else would take it. But Luke absorbs it coolly, thoughtfully, shutting his eyes to contemplate it. 

Unless he’s just napping. He did just go through an intense battle.

“Destruction isn’t enough, I think,” Luke muses. “It lets you put an end to a part of the problem immediately, but…” 

“Not all of them. And sometimes it gives rise to new ones.” 

_Like those people who worked for the Empire. Most of them are still around, and quite a few probably want things to stay the same._

He wonders how many people realize that they might have to fight immediately upon landing at Coruscant. He wonders if they realize more of them might still die. 

Luke stands up, and stares outside their window. Lando has the impression he’s not really seeing anything that’s outside. 

“Vader was my father. I learned that on Bespin,” Luke says, his voice thin. Almost like a faulty recording. “He had a moment of… understanding when he died. Contrition, maybe. Not that it matters to anyone out there. Not that it _should._.”

Lando replays everything about the escape from Bespin. He replays Luke sitting there in stiff medical garb, watching the reconstruction of his hand. How he’d been distracted and comforted by every joke.

Everything about that time gains new dimensions. 

“Does that feel like a burden?” Lando asks, even though he knows the answer. 

“Yes, at first.” A pause. “Yes, still. I think responsibility is a better word for it now, though.”

“You aren’t responsible for what he did, though. You actively tried to stop it, before and after you knew.” 

Luke folds his arms, staring down at nothing. “Before Han showed up, what happened between you and Vader?”

“I negotiated as much as I was able.”

“Meaning he gave you the chance to choose between a couple awful choices.” 

Lando doesn’t like to think about that time. The worst of it was that hour in which they were aware that an Imperial ship was preparing to land in Bespin. Sure, they could have attempted to shoot it out of the sky, but their technology was no match for that. Even if it had been, it would have bought them a few more days before the Empire would likely come in force. All they could do was wait, knowing it meant nothing good. He'd spent the time secretly finalizing escape routes from Bespin. None of his people died the day they fled the Empire. If nothing else he can take pride in that.

“Someone on my staff was a diplomat from Alderaan who’d been on our planet when their home was destroyed. That sort of thing sticks with you.” He holds up his hands. “Not that I’m making excuses or anything-”

“Reasons and excuses are two different things. I understand your motivations.” 

Even as he says this with conviction, Lando has a feeling that Luke would have had a very different reaction prior to events at Bespin. But time has a way of altering everyone. Lando has good reason to remember this.

“You want to know what Vader was like when we met, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“He was…” Lando searches for the right word. “He was joyless. It surprised me. I had heard all these stories about Vader and how sadistic he was. In person, though, he didn’t seem to care much about anything but his end goal.”

That did nothing to assuage Lando's fears at the time. If anything, knowing that Bespin meant nothing to Vader had made Lando even more frantic.

“I wanted to rescue him from himself. Though, now I’m wondering what would have happened if I had just shown up with Darth Vader back at the base.” As Luke says this, Lando gets the distinct impression that this will remain a secret forever. Hidden from everyone but Leia and Han, probably. Lando’s heart is as heavy as a stone, as he weighs the trust that’s been placed in him. 

“I think he would have been taken into custody and put on trial. And if he had a revelation at the end, as you say, he probably would have seen the wisdom in that.” 

Luke is resting his forehead against the window, as though he can’t support himself. Too many burdens, too many culled pathways to the future. 

“I did what I could.” 

“You did. And now you have to keep living.” 

Luke blinks as if seeing Lando for the first time. Then he lies down beside him in the small bed. It makes Lando hold onto Luke if only to keep him from crashing onto the floor. 

“You have to keep living too,” Luke says, his face so close to Lando’s. “What’s next for you?”

“Back to Bespin, if I can manage it.” Now Lando is staring at all the stars gliding past in the window. “So many of our neighboring planets are named after people in the Empire.” A sudden, unwelcome realization. “We’ll probably have to change all of them and it will be a logistical nightmare.” 

Luke is grinning. Almost laughing. 

“What’s so funny?” 

“You’re complaining but you sound so happy. It’s good when people know what they want to do.” 

_Yeah, yeah._ He knows what he wants to do. _If_ he survives this transfer of power. _If_ Bespin wants him back. 

He’s still thinking about this when Luke traces his fingers over the side of his face. Then he stops thinking when Luke kisses him. 

Lando had never been sure if they’d continue what they started just before Dagobah. It seems inevitable now as their limbs tangle together, and clothes start to come off. But Lando reminds himself that inevitability is a complicated thing. This perfect moment is the end result of interlocking choices and coincidences. Decisions that they’ve made, and times when they’ve been lucky. Even when they finish, they dim the lights and kiss for a long while beneath the light of unnamed stars.

*

On Coruscant, the quarters of the defunct Jedi Council are a mausoleum to a world barred from Luke. There’s dust, there’s faded paint, but there’s also the whole city far below his window. Every shadow, every angle speaks to a place awash in continuity. Thousands of years of tradition abruptly beheaded and preserved.

He tries to imagine his father withiin these walls. He tries to imagine Yoda here. Sometimes, if he clears his mind, he can hear Ben as a young man. Sometimes, when his heart starts to race, he hears the death throes of everyone who perished here. 

These are tiny stirrings, but it’s enough to make him sit in the middle of a round room at the very top of this structure. He meditates until the sun descends. He meditates until it reappears. And when he leaves this grave, it’s like flying away from Tatooine. There’s no chance of him returning. 

Maybe this will be the rest of his life; a steady retreat from sites of pain, a continuus withdrawal into the mysteries of the Force. 

He’s certainly going further into Coruscant. Its public transpiration is a series of veins. Within them is a mass stampede of people from all corners of the galaxy. Their thoughts and fears are like talons hooking into Luke’s heart. So many of them wanted the Empire to just leave them alone. Now they want the same of the Rebellion’s interim government. 

Luke returns to his quarters, answers a message from Leia and contemplates meditating again. A few moments later, though, Lando is at his door. 

They talk, and Luke observes their own conversation as if from a distant moon. He admires the rhythm of it, actually. It’s like the way he admires artistic endeavors outside his capabilities. Lando has a way of easing into a difficult topic so that his target is totally at ease. 

“Speaking of Leia,” Lando says now, “I don’t think she was very happy when you disappeared for half a day and turned off all methods of communication.” 

Lando is smiling, but it's not a joke. That, more than anything, finds its way to Luke. It yanks him out of the clouds and pulls him solidly to the ground. For all of his childhood, he’s had a sense of longing. He knows, now, that Leia had been one of the missing pieces. The most crucial one. 

“I should apologize to her,” Luke says. It must be the first time he’s seemed fully engaged in the conversation, because Lando’s shoulders relax a bit. 

“It probably was disappointing that Rebellion voted that way, huh?”

Luke ponders the wisdom of that name. Could they be a rebellion when they’re no longer actively rebelling? Change, he thinks, is one of the few constant. Change might be their glory and their downfall. 

The impromptu governing body had, indeed, frustrated Luke. They’d all nodded along with his plans for a new Jedi training school. And then, one-by-one they’d all refused to have it on their home planet. This hadn’t been much of a problem; Luke had had thoughts of housing it in the quarters of the old Jedi Council.

But they had been deprived him of this plan with even more rancor than their initial refusals. There had been a variety of reasons for disliking the idea, but they’d been united in their opposition. Luke had been sent from the hall and he’d had the distinct impression that his father had once been denied mightily on Coruscant, too. The thought had chased him all the way the exact place he would never live, never teach, never learn. 

“I was pretty unhappy at the time,” Luke says, slowly. Feeling it out. “I went up to the Jedi quarters yesterday, though, and now I think it wouldn’t work. 

Lando sits next to him, and Luke ponders the relationship of their bodies. Their hips are side-by-side, and there’s a tension in their frames. A gravitational pull compelling them together. Luke nudges a bit closer, and Lando’s arm ends up over his shoulders. 

It makes him think of the crowds from a little while ago. A world of people could be exhausting. But one person could be the world. 

“Why wouldn’t it work?” Lando asks, once they’re both comfortable. “Too much decay? It’s been decades, apparently. That wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Actually it looked very well preserved.” He thinks about the sun’s rays sliding along that old floor, lighting up its panels. It must do the same dance every single day. “Everything was probably the same as the day the Republic fell. And that's the problem.”

“Really? They didn't change anything? I would have expected them to convert it into a place to design weapons like the Death Star. You know, for the symbolism of it.” This close, Luke can feel Lando’s puzzlement. “Although… Maybe it was like a trophy for the Emperor. I wonder if he ever went up there to gloat.” 

Luke thinks of all the locks and panels he’d had to bypass to reach the Council chambers. It had recently been a very protected place. “I think so. I think he went to revel in what was lost because of him. It wasn’t a happy place, that’s for sure. I don’t think I’d want to train new Jedi in it.” 

The conversation devolves from that point because Luke turns to face Lando. And they both realize they’d rather be kissing than pondering the recesses of the Emperor’s mind. 

It doesn’t take long for Luke to notice certain things, though. There’s a lack of conviction in Lando’s touches. Their lips seem to almost glance off one another. It makes Luke laugh and pull back completely.

“You’re distracted,” he says. 

“I keep thinking about your problem,” Lando confesses. “I think basically every planet is going to deny you. And you’ll probably have solar systems denying you the use of their unoccupied planets, too. People want to feel safe, and re-establishing the Jedi sends one hell of a signal.” 

Luke waits for anger or disappointment. Instead, he’s cold throughout. “Oh.” He increases his grip on Lando. “I’ll figure it out somehow.”

“I have an idea, actually. What if you _built_ a brand new planet for your Jedi school?” _Like Bespin_ remains unspoken.

There’s excitement pouring out Lando. It slowly seeps into Luke, and he can feel it in his bones. “That doesn’t seem like it would be easy,” he says, even though he can anticipate the answer that’s coming.

“Oh, it won’t be.” Lando really has the greatest smile. “And it definitely won’t be safe. But after being driven from our home, I think all of Bespin wants to send a clear statement about what we want from our new galaxy. And we definitely have the best engineers.”

When they kiss again, it's with renewed enthusiasm. Now, when Luke closes his eyes he doesn't hear echoes from distant decades. Instead, holding onto Lando is like grabbing onto the framework of the future.


End file.
